like hens as they reassured her about my undamaged
return.
Infuriated by all this feminine fussiness I pushed
past them and scurried up the back stairs to the school-
room, whither Aunt Evelyn immediately followed me
with additional exclamations and expostulations. I
was now not only humiliated but sulky, and had I
been a few years younger my rudeness would have
ended in my being smacked and sent to bed. As it
was I was merely informed that unless I learnt to
behave better I should never grow up into a nice
man3 and was left alone with my tragic thoughts. . . .
Next morning I paid my customary visit to the
stable with a few lumps of sugar in my pocket. Dixon
was polishing up a stirrup-iron at the door of the little
harness room; he stopped in the middle of a jaunty
snatch of song to give me his usual greeting. All my
embarrassment faded out of me. His impassive face
made not the slightest reference to yesterday's cal-
amity and this tactful silence more than ever assured
me of his infinite superiority to those chattering
females in the kitchen.
IV
SINCE THE continuity of these memoirs is to depend
solely on my experiences as a sportsman, I need
not waste many words on the winter, spring, summer
and autumn that chronologically followed the last
episode which I narrated. Outwardly monotonous,
my life was made up of that series of small inward
happenings which belong to the development of any
intelligent little boy who spends a fair amount of time
with no companion but himself. In this way I con-
tinued to fabricate for myself ai} intensely local and
22